Mei Memento
by captain-tots
Summary: Chris has trouble dealing with failure; Piers wants to help.


**Mei Memento **

* * *

**AN: **Yup, I'm still alive. Find me on tumblr and Ao3 if you want to see what I've been up to.

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**October 2012. Edonia. **

_Records are made to be broken_, that's how the phrase goes, isn't it? Chris Redfield though, he'd less than respectfully disagree. When your record is "commanding officer with the least combat losses," that's not something you want to break. And when it's "only commanding officer with zero fatalities in the Edonian Civil War," well, you really don't want to see that get broken.

They'd made it this far, Alpha Team, not a single death. No matter what those nasty mercenary motherfuckers were popping in their necks—that shit that turned them into gurgling humanoids with lobster arms and a thousand eyeballs—no matter how hopeless the odds had seemed when they were crowded into ditches or huddling under the window sills in Stalin-era apartment buildings, surrounded on all sides; they got out. All of them; never a man left behind. That was how Chris played it, regardless of how the higher-ups would feel about risking the whole team for one straggler. Captain Redfield gets all his soldiers out alive, or the BSAA doesn't get a Captain Redfield.

Getting assigned to Redfield's team was like being protected by God; that's what the recruits spread around. A career defining three loses—two, when you considered that one of them came back from the dead. Not a single soldier missing in action, no swallowed guns or similar self inflicted fates. He was the ultimate rarity in the BSAA, where entire teams might be wiped out in a single day by some unforeseen monstrosity.

Once, just once, some pencil pushing bureaucrat who thought he knew what made a solider tick asked Chris how he did just what he did—what motivated him to get every soldier out, every time. It was a harmless question, probably intended for a nice audio bite to send up to the UN. But as soon as he processed the words, Chris was standing back in an Africa laboratory, Sheva by his side, the smell of corpses rotting in the oppressive heat filling his nostrils. And then he was sitting in the lobby of the Raccoon City Police Station, with the red eyed and blotchy faced families of Joseph Frost, Forest Speyer, Richard Aiken. The air had a chemical scent from a broken air conditioner; there was a twitchy blonde woman sitting across from him with dark circles under her eyes the size of saucers and a briefcase in her lap; Richard's infant daughter was crying and crying... of course, a few weeks later, they were all dead too.

Chris had apparently stared at the unfortunate office worker for five minutes without saying a word. No one asked him about what "motivated" him again.

His first loss had happened in Africa. They were on what Sheva had optimistically referred to as "cleanup crew," checking out old Tricell facilities for any signs of activity and gathering intel. Chris was of the opinion that they should have bombed the place into oblivion, rather than risking lives running recon for computer hard drives for evidence against whatever corporation was out of favor with the political heads of the BSAA. He and Sheva had told the group to steer clear of the stalled up conveyor belts leading to the furnace, covered in bodies. Just because the zombies should have starved to death by now didn't mean that they had. But this real young hot shot, Brenton had been his name, he spotted some jewelry around the necks of one of the bodies, and made a grab at it. He got his windpipe ripped through his throat in two seconds flat. And though the loss pained him, Chris knew that it had been Brenton's own carelessness that killed him.

The second time was on a "peacekeeping" tour in The Eastern Slavic Republic, following CIA reports of BOW activity. A random civilian shot ballistics expert, Amber Wilcox, in the head, in a fit of rage over what he saw as the "Americanization," of his country—never mind that the BSAA was global. The perpetrator seemed just as surprised as the team that he had succeeded in killing her. It had been a random act of violence, committed by an angry citizen. It had been out of his control. Chris had played the scenario over and over in his mind, night after night, but he never found anything he could have reasonably done to prevent it, not without evidence of what was about to happen.

So, those two losses, painful as they were, Chris could absolve himself of them. It felt almost cruel to do so, but the alternative was to lose his sanity.

Chris had two outlets for his frustration. The first was revenge. And when revenge wasn't a possibility, that left one remaining option.

That awful day had started out like any other day, any other day in a Godforsaken warzone at least. The rebels were growing in numbers, and strength. Superhuman strength at that. Anything short of a headshot or a messy brain bludgeoning turned the injured tissue into grotesque muscle mass. The town was under siege by the monsters, and they were closing in fast. Most of the BSAA teams had suffered heavy casualties, with the exception of Chris Redfield's North American Alpha Team. They were hiding out in an apartment building, which like most Edonian buildings, had a network of catacombs running under it dating back to World War I. When the building got swarmed, Chris had made the judgment call to escape underground. A stupid, stupid judgment call. He hadn't thought it through—if their building was getting swarmed, what meant that the other occupied buildings weren't under attack as well? And every resident had thought the same thing as Chris—get out through the catacombs. The creatures, J'avo, they were smart bastards. And they followed the panicked citizens straight down.

It had been a massacre. Civvies were torn to pieces before their eyes, but they couldn't risk firing in the chaos. The tunnels, built to hold groups of maybe five at a time, were packed to bursting. They were being fired on from every direction. Chris was just waiting for one of them to risk blowing the whole town sky high with a grenade.

"Hold your fire," Chris had yelled above the panic, over and over again. It was like being swallowed by a sea of bodies, screaming and writhing, and all trying to move the opposite way from which they came. It was a logistical nightmare—a captain's worst fear. Getting your men stuck in a position from which they couldn't retreat, couldn't fire, could barely melee fight for fear of splitting a civvies head open along with the J'avo. The only thing they could do was through flash bangs, enough to keep the monsters blinded—and do a number on their own vision as well.

So they packed in close and waited. Chris was not afraid—he was never afraid. It was his gift. Nothing had frightened him since he watched his best friend throw herself out a window. He kept his breathing steady, used the butt of his gun to temporarily stun any creatures that got too close.

"Retreat!" Chris finally ordered, after what had only been a few minutes. It felt like they had been down there for years and years. They backed up slowly, continually throwing flash grenades to clear the way, executing a few J'avo with knives or smacking them with rifles.

They could see the ladder. Relieved, Chris yelled out the order to retreat again.

It was stupid. He'd been so concerned about getting them out of the pit alive, he forgot to even think about what was waiting on the surface.

The first soldier to climb the ladder was Dominic, a tough soldier from Arizona, fresh out of the Marines and right into the BSAA. He used to tell the team that the Marines weren't dangerous enough for him, that the BSAA was where the fun was. Despite his boisterousness, he was excellent at following orders, a great shot, and a tough survivalist. He scrambled up the ladder, and screamed. A few seconds later, he came tumbling back down into the catacombs, his body armor punctured straight through the chest with a close range shotgun blast.

"Fuck," Chris heard the team's ace, Piers Nivan, swear next to him. "Fuck... when did they get shotguns..."

Chris' head was spinning. He knew upon a single look that there was no hope for Dominic; the high powered shotgun had just about blown his heart out past his spine.

But he could process that later. Now was time for action.

"Grenades," he yelled, and the team followed the command, chucking incendiaries up onto the first floor of the house. The fire bombs were less effective, but wouldn't collapse the house like a regular old hand grenade might.

Chris didn't even need to tell his men to get Dominic's body up with them too, once they'd cleared out the first floor. The team sat in a circle, breathless with adrenalin and fear.

Finally, someone spoke.

"Cap," they addressed Chris. "What are we going to do about all those trapped civvies?"

"I don't know."

* * *

Following what became known as the Edonian Massacre, North America's Alpha Team was put on temporary leave for the period of one week, and flown off to Berlin. Chris didn't quite have made up in his mind what he was going to do yet, but it was there, this sort of nagging itch he couldn't scratch at.

As far as the BSAA knew, Chris' drinking habits boiled down to this: he drank to get drunk, as quickly and inexpensively as possible, he got drunk to escape, and he hadn't drank since his Air Force discharge. The last one was a bit more complicated than all the psychologists who had to clear him for duties and promotions had seemed to realize.

Addiction displacement, that was what his sister had called it before. Danger or drink, it doesn't matter where the numbness comes from, not as long as it's there.

Once they touched down in Berlin and dumped their bags, Chris said he was going out to take a walk. And that was the last they'd seen him for the past few hours.

Now, vodka in hand, half bent over the counter of the seediest and cheapest bar he could find in the city, Chris was hazily wondering how he was going to get back to the hotel, or if he even wanted to go back. His tactical error had haunted him the whole way through the flight there, and hadn't done him the favor of shutting up despite his best efforts to drown it.

Taking him out of the field, Chris mused, was the worst thing the BSAA could have done for him, really. As long as they were still moving, he didn't have time to dwell on his mistakes. He could push it all down in the name of survival for as long as it took... only to have a spectacular breakdown when the fight was said and done. He'd fucked himself right up once he got home from Kijuju, replaying every single mistake he had made in his head. Sure, Albert Wesker was dead, and the world would breathe one more day, but that wasn't enough for Chris. He'd made mistakes, put lives at risk. He could have saved more people if they had discovered what was going on sooner...

When the bar closed in the early morning hours, Chris wobbled off his seat and walked outside, aimless. It was chilly, but he didn't really feel it. He didn't have a plan for this: he didn't know which way to get to the hotel, didn't know how to hail a taxi, or how to speak German for that matter. But, he didn't care. He just started walking.

Chris got a couple blocks, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, his unsteady gait giving away his intoxication, before someone stopped him.

"Captain? Captain Redfield?"

The words bounced off the walls of every building. Chris comprehended them slowly. Someone was calling for him... someone out here recognized him... _fuck._

He took a lunging step forward as if to run away, and tripped face first against the sidewalk.

_Fuck. Fuck... _

Chris wasn't sure if the right path of action was to stay laying down on the ground, or pull his face off the concrete and assess the damages.

"Captain... do you need some help?"

The voice belonged to Piers Nivans, the second in command of Alpha Team.

Chris took a minute to think about accepting Piers' offer.

"Captain! Do you need some help?" Piers repeated, louder this time.

"I'm fine," Chris grunted. He started pushing himself up, but his hand slid, and lost his balance once again.

"Here, just let me give you a hand," Piers said, reaching out to grab Chris' hands and pulling him upright. Standing and facing Piers, Chris felt dizzy. His vision was a little off, and trying to make eye contact was nauseating.

"Um.." Chris began, choking on his words. He didn't have the capacity to explain himself.

"I think you might just be lost, Captain."

"Yeah," Chris agreed. "Yeah, I'm lost."

"I know the way back to the hotel..." Piers said, his words slow and clear, like he was talking to a child.

"I don't want to go back to hotel," Chris slurred. "Not like this..."

Piers looked around the street, concern coming over his face. He spotted a bench, and tugged Chris' arm lightly.

"Let's sit down," Piers said, "let's just sit down."

He stuck close to Chris' side while the pair shuffled over the few yards to the bench. Chris uneasily sat down, and Piers sat next to him.

"So, uh," Piers spoke. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?" Chris groaned, holding his head in his hands.

"Dominic."

Chris lowered his hands to glare at Piers.

"What the fuck makes you think I want to talk about that?" he snarled.

Piers' expression shifted from concerned to pissed.

"Seeing as you're shit drunk in a city where you don't speak the language or know how to get around, I'd say now is a great time to talk about it."

"I could have you reported for that kind of talk..."

"And I could have you pulled out of the field for this. So start talking."

"I just... I don't..." Chris sighed, tripping over his words. "I haven't lost a man like that before. Because I made a dumb ass mistake."

"You know," Piers said, voice softer, "it's not your fault."

Chris scoffed.

"Of course it is."

"You don't take failure well," Piers observed.

"I don't take it."

Piers looked as though he was about to speak, but shut his mouth and furrowed his brow in thought for a moment.

"Does this," he said, gesturing at Chris, "happen often?"

"What?" Chris growled.

"The, uh, _drunk_ thing."

"None of your business, kid."

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, Piers not pressing further, and Chris cradling his head in his palms once again.

"You can't punish yourself like this," Piers finally said, words cutting through the empty air. "You can't do this to yourself—we need you."

"What makes you think," Chris said, words muffled by his hands, "that I'm punishing myself?"

"Because, Captain, you don't seem like the sort of man who runs away from his unit without a word to get wasted for fun."

"What kind of man do I seem like to you then?"

"Honorable," Piers responded, so quick that it seemed to be a reflex. "Someone who cares about his soldiers. The best Goddamn Captain I've ever me. It's an honor to serve under you. Everyone feels that way."

"I wonder," Chris chuckled bitterly, "how honorable they'd find me right now?"

"This doesn't change my opinion of you, Captain..."

"Call me Chris."

"Uh, Chris. This doesn't change my opinion of you."

"Why the fuck not?"

"I respect you unconditionally."

"No, no," Chris slurred. "You can't _respect_ someone unconditionally—what's the point of respect then?" You can _love_ someone unconditionally, maybe."

"Call it whatever you want," Piers answered, suddenly stiff and terse with his words.

"You love me, is that it?" Chris laughed.

"Look, you can call it what you want, I said that. Just, I want you to know that you can talk to me about shit—okay? Instead of doing this."

"Talk to you about what?"

"Talk to me about Dominic."

There was a pause.

"He's dead," Chris said. "And I hate myself for it."

Piers looked around quickly, and spotting no one, laid his arm on Chris' shoulders.

"Please," he said, "don't hate yourself."

Chris sighed, heavy.

"We can talk about it," Piers said. "Just, before this happens again, remember that."

Chris nodded in response.

"Shit, Nivans. Maybe you really do love me."

Piers shook his head and smiled.

"Next time, remember me?"


End file.
